Monday, November 28, 2011

THANKSGIVING IN ISRAEL

by Sarah Walton

How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was a tad bizarre, but interesting and fun, thank you very much, and it all began a week ago.

My son had purchased a surprise for me: a built-in, super-fancy, deluxe model espresso/cappuccino maker. Last Saturday night several friends came over to savor a hearty brew and chew the proverbial fat for a bit.

Many of my son’s new friends on kibbutz El-Rom speak English well, and we were regaling each other with stories of the lands we came from (only half of those present were native-born Israelis), when I happened to mention that it would be Thanksgiving
this coming Thursday.

It was though I had just announced a cooking contest with a prize of a million dollars!

Turns out several of the women slurping up an evening dose of caffeine were excellent cooks, and immediately I had a half-dozen eager chefs vying to make candied yams, pumpkin pies, sage stuffing and plum pudding (wasn’t that a Christmas dish?).

By the time the turkeys (there were four!) went into their respective ovens (three neighbors’ ovens had to help out), we were cooking for over 60 people! It seems everybody wanted a taste of American Thanksgiving

Thank heaven one of the thanksgiving angels had formerly run a catering business and had a large kitchen with ample counter space. Thus I spent a lot of time at Jackie’s house prepping things, like the stuffing. Jackie’s British, beautiful and absolutely amazing in the kitchen. I’d hire her and her chopping knife in a minute!

After helping me with all the stuffings, Jackie was making mincemeat tartlets and homemade dinner rolls. Adi (who has spent time in the States, but never celebrated Thanksgiving) volunteered to take care of the starch: mashed potatoes and candied yams. Sarah would make a warm vegetable salad; Lisa would make pumpkin pie and a bean casserole. The list of volunteer cooks grew, as the list of attendees swelled.

I was in charge of the turkeys, the traditional Brussels sprouts dish, a pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie and an apple pie.

When we made our first Thanksgiving shopping expedition, I learned several key things about trying to create an American holiday menu in the Middle East.

Number One: it’s impossible to procure a turkey (at least up here in the North of Israel) of more than five kilos (about 11 pounds), which is why we ended up ordering four turkeys at the Super Sol in Qatsrin. Number Two: they don’t remove the pin feathers from the turkeys, and when I showed one friend whose oven would be applying the coup de grace to Tom turkey, she almost fainted at the sight of all the pin feather stubs sticking out (I admit, I wasn’t too please at the sight myself).

Okay, I was going to spend several hours denuding turkeys.

Number Three: there is no such thing as an American-style pie plate in the whole of Israel. They are either fluted tartlet tins a foot wide and only an inch deep, or they’re a foot wide, three-plus inches deep and look more like cake tins. Plus, ready-made crusts (which I wanted to use just to save “prep” time) come in two varieties: non-sweet and sweet (which was really a kind of shortbread dough).

Okay, I was going to learn how to use shortbread dough to cook a pie that took double the number of apples I usually peeled and sliced. Plus it had to cook slowly for double the normal time, so that the dough didn’t burn to a crisp (even with aluminum foil over the edges). A word to the wise: a shortbread crust absorbs all the moisture from the filling and turns into a granulated mush on the bottom, without browning.

But the worst of all was that I couldn’t find a single Brussels sprout! Just a couple of weeks previous I knew I had seen them in several markets, but now they had disappeared -- even from the frozen food section.

It was only when an old friend, Lionel Gaffen, who lives down in the Galilee at another kibbutz, Kfar Giladi, took pity on me and showed me Souk Gadol (Big Market) in Qyriat Shmona, that I was able to find frozen sprouts. Whew! Many thanks to Lionel.

And pumpkins: there is no such thing -- at least of the American ilk -- in the entire Middle East, as far as I can tell! What Israelis call pumpkin is some huge pale green-skinned squash that is only sold in chunks in the markets.

Okay, I was going to learn how to make an enormous butternut squash taste like pumpkin pie.

But the greatest thing I learned about Thanksgiving in a foreign land?

Good friends, good food, good intentions and good wine (Jackie’s husband Arik makes a darned good cabernet sauvignon) make for a wonderful holiday abroad.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

WAR HAS BEGUN

By Simon Fischler


The dire predictions by many international media organizations, of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear installations -- which would then cause a regional war, have become a joke.

Apparently the majority of mid-east analysts are either totally ignorant to the real situation on the ground ,or they do not want you to know the truth and are hiding it from you.

Israel has already carried out this pre-emptive strike; in fact it has carried out a few strikes against Iran’s budding nuclear program, something the US, the EU and NATO are too namby-pamby to do.

It matters not that Israel happens to be using the Mossad and its covert ops instead of the IAF; the point still has been made: Israel will not allow another holocaust, especially not at the hands of Iran.

Israel started this war by quietly eradicating several top Iranian nuclear scientists who had been working on the Iranian atom bomb project.

This covert war against Iran’s nuclear dream peaked when Mossad assassinated Majid Shahriari, the scientist in charge of the whole program. This assassination dealt a greater blow to Iran’s imperialist nuclear aspirations than ten IAF airstrikes on its nuclear facilities.

Then came Israel’s Stutnex Virus attack on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant and Natanz Nuclear facility. Stutnex caused Iran’s precious uranium centrifuges to spin wildly out of control, destroying decades of work in a matter of seconds. Many believe Stutnex has extrapolating extensions within the virus which have continued to plague Iran’s computer capabilities to this day.

The more recent Malware Virus hit on Natanz was worth more to Israel as a military strike than twenty IAF airstrikes, crippling Iran’s ability to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Even though Israel had upped the heat in the Iranian nuclear kitchen, many believed the success of the Mossad under Mier Dagan may have gone with his retirement.

Israel cleared that up last week when it assassinated Iranian General Hasan Moghaddam, called the father of the Iranian and Hezbollah missile programs.

Israel, acting in the interest of itself, the US and all Western democracies, has gone to war with the corner stone of Islamic fascism, Iran. She has done so while most other countries could barely mouth the words to bring about sanctions against Iran

But then, as has happened throughout most of her existence, Israel’s war against Iran started years ago and was not with an airstrike.

P.S.- Sheik Hassan Nashrallah claimed this week that his agents had destroyed the Mossad and CIA in Lebanon; two days later the Mossad responded by blowing up Hezbollah's main missile depot in the Hezbollah stronghold of Tyre, deep in the heart of southern Lebanon.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

IRISH SPRING OR ARAB SPRING -- WHICH IS REAL; WHICH IS PHONY?

By Schmoel Yitzhak

There are two kinds of "Springs" in my life these days; one I like; the other I detest.

Irish Spring is an inexpensive deodorant soap with an invigorating odor and a pleasant green look about it. I use it every morning when showering myself down for the day ahead.

Arab Spring is just the opposite.

For one thing, it stinks to high heaven and no amount of applicable Irish Spring can ever disinfect the odor emanating from Cairo, Triipoli and Damascus, among other turbulent towns.

Irish Spring is a genuine product which does what it says; cleans you up and makes you smell good.

Arab Spring is no more than a fictitious label concocted by the journalistic horde looking for a positive democratic hook to put on a very un-democratic story in the Middle East.

Oh, yeah, there were well-meaning protestors galore last January at Cairo's Tahrir Square demanding the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak and eventually -- with a lot of misguided help from Barack Obama -- they got their wish. 

Mubarak is history and so, for that matter, is the Arab Spring; at least in that idealistic sense propagated by the know-nothing North American and European media which so desperately tries to elevate the Arab cause beyond all logical reason. 

The case against Mubarak was that he led a repressive regime and, as such, deserved to get the hook.

So, what kind of beautiful music have his successors provided?

Well, if you call the "rat-a-tat-tat" of machine guns "music," then Egyptians have been getting their fair share because what's happened is that the successors to the repressive Mubarak are no more than repressors themselves. Want proof? At last look at least 24 protestors have been killed as the current leaders suppress the anti-government activists. 

Arab Spring? Get this analysis direct from The Associated Press:

"Over recent months, security around Egypt has fallen apart with increased crime, sectarian violence and tribal disputes. The economy has badly deteriorated. Airport officials report a sharp drop in international passenger arrivals -- a further blow to the country's crucial tourism industry, which is one of the top foreign currency earners."

Then again, one might say that the view from Cairo is a lot rosier than the sickening spectacle in Damascus. After all, the 24 Cairo deaths are small potatoes compared to the hundreds massacred by the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad -- with more killings occurring by the day. 

Some Arab Spring?

In the case of Syria, arguably the most astonishing aspect of the anti-Assad uprising is that the protestors have received precious little help from Uncle Sam, nor his English, French and other European Union pals. 
The best they've been able to do is wring their hands in dismay and issue banal warnings that have about as much effect on the Syrian dictator as a Band-Aid on a grenade wound.

Assad knows a futile gesture when he sees it and when The Arab League suspended Syria's membership, Bashar's reaction was roughly equivalent to Groucho Marx's comment when he was refused membership in a Waspish country club:  "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member!"

Meanwhile, Obama's cronies continue to do what they've been doing since the Democrat took office, blather about Iran instead of directly taking on that nut-nation. Obama's National Security Advisor Tom Donilon is the latest to blow steam at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"If Tehran does not change course," says Donilon, "the pressure will continue to grow. Working with allies and partners, we will continue to increase sanctions."

Some threat. Ahmadinejad & Co. laugh at such imprecations. They heard variations on Donilon's theme when Iran began its hostile nuclear program years ago and continued hearing them right up until today. Yes, they hear; but, no, they don't care because they have seen over and over again that Obama is a tissue threat. 

And don't tell me that you believe Washington when Donilon proclaims, "We will take no option off the table."

Who is he kidding? The one option that matters is not on the table. If anywhere, it's on Benjamin Netanyahu's and it's no secret that Obama has been warning him not to use it -- or else. (I doubt that Obama knows what that "or else" really is.

Disaster has been the Arab's middle name for centuries and, really, nothing has changed. 

As Moshe Arens points out in Haaretz, the UN Arab Human Development Reports continue to cite "deeply rooted shortcomings" in Arab countries. Report after report rip the Arab countries for a "severely retarded educational system," lack of "respect for human rights and freedoms" and assorted other shortcomings that the international media studiously avoids reporting.

"If you were thinking that the so-called Arab Spring was going to fix all that," says Arens, "you'd better think again. It looks like the Arab Spring will be followed by an Arab Winter. The Islamists are going to inherit the mantle of the dictators."

The New York Times may believe that the Arab Spring still has virtues.

Me? I'll take Irish Spring, shower myself down with it and wish the Arab Spring could only smell as sweet!

Monday, November 21, 2011

DON’T BE FOOLED AGAIN

By Simon Fischler

Dear Americans,

In recent years we have become numb to one of the most vile forms of terrorism which strikes at the heart of American and Western democracy.

This form of terrorism is unlike any other; its roots feed off of the core of a democracy, like weeds that strangle a garden.

This terrorism is educational terrorism and it is paid for by the Saudi Royal family and the oil Sheikdoms.

The centers of higher education in America, where we send our children in the hopes of providing them with an excellent future have become Arab-run corporations of propaganda.

These corporations, to which we are expected to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for our children to attend, no longer teach truths or even genuine facts. Today they spread lies and innuendo and provide support and tenure to paid propagandists for the (undemocratic, neo-colonialist and neo-imperialist) Arab cause.

Columbia University stands as a glaring example at which this new breed of intellectual terrorism is inculcated and spread.

Columbia employs Professor Joseph Massad, who has close connections to Hamas, a group recognized by the American government as a terrorist organization.

Beyond this incredibly disturbing fact are Massad’s countless seminars, interviews and articles propagating Arab racism and genocide along with the most malicious lies against an American ally, Israel.

Massad’s type of terrorism is unique -- his lies being passed off as freedom of speech or expression.

On countless occasions his lies have been exposed. Most recently CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) brought Massad’s fallacies front and center when they completely destroyed -- lie by insidious lie -- his most recent article attacking Israeli democracy, written for Al Jazeera (English) and published October 27, 2011.

Despite CAMERA’s detailed unmasking of Massad’s duplicity, it makes no difference because Columbia continues to pay his wages and the naive students attending his Hamas propaganda seminars (disguised as Near-East courses) continue to believe his vile rhetoric.

This is what makes his form of terrorism so insidious, frightening and potentially dangerous to America’s future.

For those students who have dared to call Professor Massad on his blatantly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel lies have been kicked out of his classes or been attacked by him in front of other students, shaming them into silence.

Apparently the good professor only believes in freedom of speech when it comes to him, and/or when it pertains directly to dumping on Israel.

The question is: how has Massad the Mendacious survived?

It is not just the insane amount of money the oil sheiks provide to Columbia in quiet “donations” and endowments, which keep Professor BAD MOUTH employed. In case that is not enough, more “cover” is handily provided.

Columbia behaves much like the slippery serpents of the Oil Caliphate: we seldom see the Arab billionaires and trillionaires who actually run OPEC, keeping us hooked on oil; instead we see the white faces of the oil executives under them who are being paid millions to provide us with more “acceptable” countenances to observe -- ones that look more like us everyday Westerners.

Professor Joseph Massad and Arabists like him who promote their racist, genocidal policies to our children in our universities are protected by their own “white faces.” In the case of Massad, his corporate Columbia sugar daddy happens to be none other than John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University, Provost and Dean of Faculties Emeritus, Jonathan Cole.

This known, it becomes obvious why Massad has escaped the several calls for his removal by students he has blatantly attacked and/or evicted from his propagandistic classes.

The question is: why have the CIA, FBI and NYPD not done more to investigate Massad’s nefarious relationship with Palestinian militant groups like Hamas?

Why have they not done more to to find out how Saudi oil money is being used to change the minds of America’s future generations onto something that is ultimately anti-American?

Lastly, how have we Americans -- Left, Right and/or Center -- been fooled by corporate executives like Professor Jonathan Cole into accepting terrorism as a replacement for a university education?

Saturday, November 19, 2011

THE ISRAEL BOYCOTT; HOT, STEAMY, B.S.

By Simon Fischler

Today there is a movement aiming to delegitimize the state of Israel, brand her an apartheid nation, boycott her and force upon her a one-state solution.

The people behind this movement are sophisticated in their propaganda and malicious in their intent.

Israel is both the Jewish nation and a democratic state at the same time (the only democracy in the entire Middle East).

All of her citizens have the right to vote -- Israeli Arabs, Bedouin, Druze and Circassians included.

The Arab Muslim population of Israel has far more rights than in any other country in the entire Arab/Muslim world, an indisputable fact. There are thirteen Arab and five Druze members in the Knesset. In Apartheid South Africa black Africans were not allowed to vote at all.

The Arab Israeli population is free to live, work and play where they want in Israel.

The fact that most Israeli Arabs elect to live in discreetly separate villages is a matter more of historical, cultural, tribal and/or religious choice, but under Israeli law, they are legally free to live anywhere.

Israeli Arabs can marry Jewish Israelis.

In Apartheid South Africa black Africans were not allowed to go to white beaches, were not allowed to use white public bathrooms, were not allowed to marry whites, were not allowed to drink from white water fountains, etc.

The black South Africans were totally segregated from the white community by law.

There is nothing like this in Israel.

The Occupied Territories-

In the occupied territories the Palestinian population has the right to vote for their government, and have twice. However, much to the vocal dismay of some misled, left-leaning activists the Palestinian population cannot move about and live their lives as freely as they had in the past.

Why is that?

In the year Two Thousand, at the Taba negotiations Yasser Arafat was offered full peace, including a Palestinian State on 95-97% of the land of Judea and Shomron (or the West-bank as it is wrongfully called by many today), Arab sections of East Jerusalem, the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City and all of Gaza.

Yassar Arafat turned this offer of peace down; Arafat turned down the formation of the Palestinian State. He did this because he wanted everything, not just Palestine: he wanted Israel too.

He insisted that Israel accept the unacceptable: the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees to Israel.

The idea of Israel taking responsibility for a war started by the Arab population of Mandate Palestine and the neighboring Arab states is totally insane. The “refugees” created by this war can be attributed mostly to the Arab nations that started it. It is a known fact, admitted by many Arabs of the time, that they urged the Arab population of Palestine to flee. Here are some quotes.

ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1948, the Beirut Daily Telegraph quoted Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), as saying: "The fact that there are those refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously..."

ON APRIL 23, 1948 Jamal Husseini, acting chairman of the Palestine AHC told the UN Security Council, "The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce ... They preferred to abandon their homes, belongings and everything they possessed."

IN THE MARCH 1976 issue of Falastin a-Thaura, then the official journal of the Beirut-based PLO, Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen", now Prime Minister of the West Bank PA), then a PLO spokesman, wrote: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."

ON APRIL 9, 1953, the Jordanian daily al-Urdun quoted a refugee, Yunes Ahmed Assad, formerly of Deir Yassin, as saying: "For the flight and fall of the other villages, it is our leaders who are responsible, because of the dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... they instilled fear and terror into the hearts of the Arabs of Palestine until they fled, leaving their homes and property to the enemy."

These are but a few examples of Arab and Palestinians who attested to the fact that the majority of the Arabs fled the new state of Israel because they were told to by their leaders.

There were definitely situations where the newly formed IDF entered and pushed out Arab communities, but in most cases this was a small proportion. With few exceptions, most of these situations were caused by local Arab populations giving refuge to Arab fighters who were attacking Jewish communities, rendering them viable military targets. What you also do not hear about are the atrocities committed by the arabs against Jewish communities during the Israeli War of Independence. There were far more of these!


In fact there were more Jewish refugees created after the Israeli War of Independence when they were robbed of all their lands and possessions and thrown out of Arab countries. There were a total of 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, compared to 700,000 Arab refugees.

We do not hear about the Jewish refugees today because Israel, unlike surrounding Arab nations and North African Muslim countries, opted to follow the UN partition and managed to win its independence. Israel also then settled these refugees instead of keeping them in refugee camps as the Arabs have done.

One must also remember that neither Jordan nor Egypt allowed the Palestinians, whose areas they were occupying, their independence. Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem (razing the entire Jewish quarter of the Old City during the War of Independence); Egypt the Gaza strip. They easily could have given the Palestinians their independence. In both cases it was easier to keep these supposed Arab brethren locked up in refugee camps, fomenting hate and creating another generation to fight and kill Jews.

Why would the Palestinian leadership want to have their refugees settle in a state that is not theirs?

Why wouldn’t they want to settle their refugees in their newly formed state?

The only reason for this policy is the unquestionably bigoted and monomaniacal intent to destroy the state of Israel; to wipe out the Jews.

Friday, November 18, 2011

TEAR OFF THE BLINDFOLD

By Simon Fischler

Many people believe Zionism is a 19th century European creation. In reality Zionism has existed since the destruction of the Second Temple.

Since the mass expulsion of the Jewish nation at the hands of the Romans, we have been praying for our return to Jerusalem and Israel.

That yearning has brought Jews back to their native land on several occasions throughout history. These returning Jews integrated with Jews who were able to remain in the land of Israel.

This yearning and praying for our return to the land of our ancestors is one major factor that kept us as a nation, together and alive.

Jews throughout the world sit down to the first seder of Passover, at the end of the feast commemorating the first trek of the Jews to the “land of milk and honey,” we will finish by echoing that ancient longing: “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Zionism as the world knows it today is derived from roots that have always tied the children of Israel to their land.

The most intrinsic part of modern Zionism is that it is a nationalistic movement based on creation.

The movement wasn’t just about creating the nation we know as Israel today; it was also about improving the land, replanting forests, building reservoirs, and making that land bloom.

What many people do not know is that Zionism, even the modern form of it, was around before there was Palestinian Arab nationalism. Modern Zionism was also around before generic Arab Nationalism.

Palestinian Arab nationalism came into being after Zionism had gained many important goals in the land of Israel. Unfortunately (for all of us in the Middle East), Arab nationalism not only was created in response to Zionism, but it has been a nationalistic movement bent solely on the destruction of Israel instead of creation.

This is as relevant today as it was one hundred years ago.

The Zionists and their pre-state government, the Yishuv, lived along the lines of compromise, whereas Palestinian Arab nationalists lived along the lines of complete destruction of any Jewish hope for self-determination.

For instance, it was the Yishuv that agreed to the UN partition of Palestine Mandate into two states: one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. It was Palestinian Arab nationalists who rejected the U.N partition and promised the destruction of any Jewish State.

Today we see much of the same dialogue that we saw back at the birth of Israel more than six decades ago. The only difference is that Israel exists today, and Palestine does not.
Israel, likes the Yishuv is actively attempting to create a Palestinian State. That is right; read it loud and clear: ISRAEL IS attempting to create Palestine; while the Palestinians are still trying to rob the Jewish Nation of its political freedom.

This is why anti-Israel behavior is anti-Semitic. No other country in the world or in history has tried harder to create freedom, self-determination and a country for its enemy.

It is almost as if Israelis want a Palestinian state more than the Palestinians do!

At the opposite end the Palestinians -- and Arabs in general -- have continually fought to destroy the state of Israel.

Today it is as if Israel under Prime Minister Ehud Barak did not offer the Palestinians a state on almost all of the West Bank, all of Gaza and East Jerusalem. This unbelievable offer was rejected by the Palestinian leadership.

When will the world demand the Palestinians take responsibility for their actions?

Why does the Obama Administration play games and waste time with fruitless almost-negotiations? Will they finally demand that the Palestinians relinquish the Right of Return? If not, then there truly is no point in talking.

If there is to be peace between Israel and her neighbors, Obama’s administration, needs to demand of the Arabs what no administration has ever done. It must demand that they own up to their end of the bargain and play ball fairly with Israel.

The American administration must make it clear to the Arabs that they need to show Israelis that it is worthwhile for them to agree to peace and two states.

It can no longer be about Israel just making gestures of good faith to the Palestinians. It is high time for the Palestinians to make gestures of good faith in return. Like recognizing Israel as the Jewish State.

If not, then the Obama administration is just trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes again. Let’s tear off this blindfold and expose the truth: Arabs do not want Israel to exist.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

WHO'S SORRY NOW? WHO'S LYING NOW?

By Schmoel Yitzhak

In 1923 the composer-lyricist team of Burt Kalmar and Harry Ruby combined on a classic tune, "Who's Sorry Now?"

Too bad they're not around nine decades later. The song would have been the perfect accompaniment for the G20 summit meeting between Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy in Cannes.

Were Kalmar-Ruby observing the Sarkozy-Obama dialogue-rip on Benjamin Netanyahu, they'd likely retain the music but re-write the words and call it "Who's Lying Now?"

And were a sub-title required, they'd add: "Barack Or Nicolas -- Or Both."

For either the French Republic's president or Uncle Sam's self-styled emperor calling Israel's Prime Minister a "liar" is roughly equivalent to a couple of pots calling a couple of kettles black.

C'mon, who's kidding whom?

"I can't stand to see him anymore," said Sarkozy, either too naive or too stupid to realize that the media swarm would catch his comments. "He (Bibi) is a liar."

Obama, who spent twenty years regularly visiting a Chcago church where Jew-hating headed its weekly agenda, was no less thoughtless when he disparaged Israel's leader with a typically fatuous, "But I have to deal with him every day."

In case you've forgotten, Sarkozy comes from a country whose World War II leaders -- Marshall Petain, Pierre Laval, et. al. -- implemented Jew-killing policies that were as depraved as those of the conquering Nazis. Should we be surprised that any French leader -- remember DeGaulle? -- would dump on Israel?

Who's the liar when it comes to the exploding Middle East? Well, let's start with Iran as our case in point.

During Ariel Sharon's stewardship of Israel, he specifically warned the American and French leaders that the one -- the primary -- nation to fear was Iran. He knew; the others didn't want to know. Typically, they ignored the warnings.

And, speaking of falsehoods, The Jerusalem Post's Carol;ine Glick asks a cogent question: when has Bibi ever lied to either Sarkozy or Netanyahu?

"Netanyahu has been telling the truth about Iran and its nuclear ambitions all along," Glick points out. "In contrast world leaders have been burying their heads in sand."

If Bibi wanted to get as nasty as his American and French critics, he might shoot back: "Well, what significant moves have you made to stop Iran from becoming a threatening nuclear power?"

The answer, of course, is simply -- uselessly -- talk, talk, talk, while accomplishing nothing. Even now that the United Nations atomic agency has made it abundantly clear that Iran is working secretly on developing a nuclear weapon, the best Obama's minions can do is deliver more hot air.

Exhibit A is his Secretary of State. Responding to the IAEA report, the best Hillary Clinton could come up with was, "We expect Iran to answer the serious questions raised by this report."

Just to show you how thoroughly dim-witted that comment was, let me point out that Iran already had answered the questions. It denies -- lies about -- its intentions on a regular basis. It rejected the IASE report before it was released, when it was announced and continued to do so before Clinton even opened her mouth. Excuse me, but is Her Majesty auditioning for Alice In Wonderland?

You want to know where the lies are rooted? Try Pennsylvania Avenue. Check out the White House and its endlessly timid posture toward Iran.

Don't for a moment forget that only four years ago Washington tried to calm the civilized world -- also known as appeasing Iran -- with an important document. America's National Intelligence Estimate was that Iran had abandoned nuclear weapons. U.S. intelligence "experts" told the world the lie of all lies that it had definitive proof of Iran's good intentions.

Obama ran and continued running with this fabrication which was precisely what the ayatollahs had hoped the White House would do.

"Obama," adds Caroline Glick, "wasted the first two years of his administration attempting to charm the Iranians out of their nuclear weapons program."

For all we know, pursue the White House will continue its nonsensical policy of appeasing Tehran. In the meantime, it's talk, talk, talk while Hillary assures us that "The U.S. will continue to consult closely with our allies on the next steps we can take to increase pressure on Iran."

Forget about it. Obama, Inc. is afraid to do anything practical, which is simply to bomb the Iranian plants until they're once and for all out of business.

But the president neither has the time nor inclination to make the tough move. Instead, he's worried about getting re-elected and maintaining the Jewish vote. (He should be so lucky.)

By next October, the "liar" issue may have faded away. Then, again, it may still be relevant. After all, there's plenty of time for more fabrications.

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich won't forget it; that's for sure.

"We can pick who we want to describe as a liar," says the former speaker of the House, "the head of the P.L.O., the head of Hamas, the head of Iran. To be unhappy with Benjamin Netanyahu, who's trying to survive in a dangerous neighborhood, strikes me as flagrantly inappropriate.

"And to have our president agree with Sarkozy was really disgusting."

Yes, it could boomerang on Obama, big-time. And if it does, you know which song the Republicans will be singing next Fall, don't you?

"Who's Sorry Now?

Monday, November 7, 2011

IF IT'S THEM (IRAN) OR US (ISRAEL), THE LATTER MUST TRUMP THE FORMER

By Schmoel Yitzhak

Every six months on the month the Middle East media dust off their assorted columns about Israel attacking Iran's nuclear facilities and every half-year nothing happens.

One could say that the Law of Averages eventually will catch up with the story and should that be the case a real, live attack on the Iranian atomic factories wouldn't happen a moment too soon.

At least a dozen countries -- Saudi Arabia and the United States, among them -- would love to see Iran's nuclear program neutralized but none of those nations are willing to either singly or collectively take action.

What they do is what they have done for years; exhale enough oxygen to launch a legion of hot-air balloons. Their talk, whether it comes from His Majesty Barack Obama, or the current United Nations do-nothing-leader, Ban Ki-moon, is synonymous with fear.

The UN is afraid of Iran the way the League of Nations was intimidated by the 1930s hellbent-on-war Japan and the rest of the world was scared out of its pants by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

Which leaves Israel -- openly threatened with destruction by the Iranians -- as the only power that is ready, willing and able to take action. The question, of course, is when and that is in the hands of the high command and I know nothing more about that.

What I do know is that whatever moves Israel makes, it will be condemned world-wide; especially -- and ironically -- by those quietly applauding the move within their various inner sanctums. The reaction, in fact, will be precisely the same as it was when Israel wiped out the Iraqi facility and the condemnations ranged from the usual Arab sources all the way to the White House. Or to put it another way; it is ever thus. The world is right; Israel is wrong.

Already, a "Senior American Military Official" -- obviously a synonym for the president -- is voicing "concern" that Israel will not give Uncle Sam a "heads-up" before any attack on Iran is launched.

Is this guy serious?

Why would Benjamin Netanyahu tip his hand? The moment such an advance warning is given two things would instantly happen: 1. Obama would demand that the attack be cancelled: 2. The plans would be so widely leaked that such an assault would have to be cancelled before it ever began.

There's no question that Israel must act on its own because the threats emanating from Teheran are as real as Hitler's warnings delivered to Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in the late 1930s before his troops conquered each country; and later Holland, Belgium and France.

Yet despite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's clear cut threat that Israel will be the victim of the second Final Solution of Jewry, the UN's response has been as feeble as the League of Nations was to the Japanese threats which later were fully implemented. Or have you -- like Ban Ki-moon -- forgotten Pearl Harbor?

It is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter how egregious the sins of Iran, Syria or Hamas the only response from Washington, the UN or, for that matter, the Arab League will be vigorous hand-wringing, head-burying -- anything but decisive action.

Imagine, if you will, the torrent of assaults from throughout the world, if Israel had killed 3,000 of its Arab citizens in six months of reprisals. If the world goes nuts when Israel decides to construct 2,000 HOUSING UNITS in East Jerusalem, what would happen if 3,000 Arab-Israelis were murdered? Well, you know the answer.

But in Syria, there's the reality of an Arab regime which HAS KILLED 3,000 of is Arab citizens since the uprising began in March.

All the Arab League has done amounts to nothing. Yeah, it arranged a "truce" and you know how Assad responded to that. Once the Arab League's "peace plan" got underway, Assad's security forces killed another fifteen Syrians.

So, who's going to stop the daily massacres in Syria? NATO, which took months to effect any significant action in Libya, wants nothing to do with saving innocent Syrians.

Obama? He pretends that Syria is somewhere on the Planet Krypton and -- while Assad executes protesters on a daily basis -- is not nearly an issue as relevant as Jerusalem construction.

What about Egypt, where the "Arab Spring" -- I wonder who coined that phony gem -- supposedly would result in a democratic paradise? Well, the latest poll indicates Egyptians are a lot worse off than they were before Mubarak was undercut by his onetime friends, including the American president.

While Egypt's new leaders try to figure out how to make their citizens happy, the best they can do to distract the masses is what every Arab boss has done since 1948, rip Israel. Thus, while Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr chooses to ignore the Syrian massacres, he has found time to condemn Israel's plan to construct new housing in Jerusalem.

"This decision is a blow to all efforts being made to reach a fair settlement to the conflict and the Palestinian problem," said Amir.

Funny, those were virtually the identical words emanating from the White House, Lady Ashton in London and the rest of the European buffoons who prefer to confuse construction of apartments with the daily murder of civilians.

On the one hand, Assad's killings -- whether they take place in the city of Hom or Damascus -- are ongoing and nobody is taking any meaningful steps to thwart the Syrian dictator.

On the other hand, Ahmadinejad's threats of a wholesale massacre of Israelis loom in the future and since no nation has made any meaningful moves to stop Iran's nuclear build-up, the intended victim has no choice to react realistically.

And since nobody else really cares about Israel's fate, that explains why Bibi must order an attack on Iran's atomic facilities.

For decades the Arabs have made it abundantly clear that when it comes to Israel, it's a them or us world. Netanyahu knows what happened when Hitler declared that the Jews must go. Bibi also understands that that Ahmadinenjad isn't kidding around either!

There's a "mad" in his name and madness in his heart!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

ON THE ROAD TO WAR -- OR WHAT?

By Schmoel Yitzhak

The Palestinians want United Nations membership -- and maybe they'll get it.

What they'll also get -- whether they want it or not -- is what likely will be the definitive war with Israel.

Ever since Israel took on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in The Gaza Strip, the Arabs have been spoiling for a confrontation but not an all-out battle. At least, not yet.

In the South, the Arabs endlessly hurl rockets and fire mortars at innocent Israeli citizens as if they can play their game with impunity. Like any self-respecting leader, Benjamin Netanyahu orders retaliation and a few more terrorists get their what-for; but not on an even scale.

The outside world -- in this most recent case the European Union's Catherine Ashton -- inevitably reacts as if both the rocketry and retaliation occur simultaneously.

No, no, NO!

There never would have been an Israeli Air Force attack on Islamic Jihad, -- killing one militant the other day -- had he not been involved in a rocket attack aimed at killing Israelis. But Lady Ashton doesn't understand that -- surprise, surprise -- and instead of clearly fingering the potential murderers, she blithely links them with the defenders.

"I wholeheartedly condemn the indiscriminate targeting of civilians wherever they are," pleads Ashton.

Excuse me. What on earth do you mean by "wherever they are?" You know where they are because you've studied the Arab-Israeli conflict long enough. And, if you don't know by now, then do everyone a favor and resign immediately. But for just one more time, Lady Ashton, I'll explain:

The thousands of rockets have been fired from Gaza AT Israelis. The civilians whom you assert are the victims of "indiscriminate targeting" are Israelis; get it?

But in the convoluted Middle East logic, victims become the aggressors and those Arabs behind the initial assaults take on the collective mantle of St. Francis of Assisi.

This is happening before our very eyes on the political stage as well where Mahmoud Abbas, Inc. pursues legitimacy via assorted United Nations organizations. Abbas knows full-well that the longer he pulls off his UN gambit the more he'll be estranged from Israel.

Yet when Bibi announced a step-up in West Bank construction yesterday a PA spokesman somberly -- and with a straight face, no less -- replied that actions such as the Prime Minister took will result in the "Peace process being destroyed."

Peace process? What "peace process?"

That was destroyed by Abbas' mentor Yassir Arafat long ago and has been buried and re-interred by Abbas himself over and over again whenever he's invited to sit down face-to-face with Bibi and talk turkey.

Just check the facts, man, just the facts.

More than a dozen -- likely one hundred -- times, Abbas has abjectly, utterly and unequivocally rejected Israel as a Jewish state. The man who piously pleads for UN recognition outrageously declares that any Palestinian state would not allow a single Jew to become a citizen. It will be judenrein, which is another way of Mahmoud proudly stating that he';ll head an apartheid state.What does he care, the UN will embrace him no matter what.

How can Lady Ashton wonder about victim and aggressor when a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee publically reveals the Arab plan for eliminating Israel.

Speaking to al Jazeera, Abas Zaki asserted straight out that forcing Israel out of Judea and Samaria was the Trojan horse for the destruction of Israel.

Slowly -- but I'm not sure how surely -- Bibi appears to be getting the point that neither the Arabs in Gaza nor the Arabs who run the West Bank want peace any more than Adolf Hitlein the late 1930s wanted to embrace Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland as a warm, non-belligerent friend.

For too long, Britain and France tried to make-nice to the Nazi dictator and they didn't wake up until the wermacht marched across the Polish border and annihilated Warsaw.

The current rocketry and mortar bombings emanating from Gaza are the Arab equivalent of Hitler's onslaught in Europe.

If the attacks from Gaza do not stop once and for all -- and there's no sign that the sporadic cease fires ever last -- Israel will have to do what the Allies did starting in 1939 -- go to war and this time take it to a finish.

And if that happens, you can bet that Lady Ashton will be moaning about "indiscriminate targeting" on both sides.

PRICE TAG

By Simon Fischler

If you haven’t heard it yet, Saudi Prince Khaled bin Talal has put a bounty of $900,000 on the head of every Israeli soldier captured to be traded for Arab TERRORISTS in Israeli jails.

One would think something as outlandish as this would have grabbed headlines all over the world, but it hasn’t.

This foul smell emanating from Saudi Prince Talal follows a declaration from big shot Saudi Cleric Awad al-Qarni who put a price of $100,000 on the head of each captured Israeli soldier.

These declarations of harmful intent against Israel follow its help in uncovering a plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi Arabian foreign minister to America.

Israel’s help in foiling the Iranian plot against Prince Saud al-Faisal was not the first time it has come to the assistance of Saudi Arabia, officially an “enemy” of the Jewish nation.

It’s a rarely discussed fact that today Israel is more of an ally to countries like Saudi Arabia and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan than any other nation in the Middle-East. So why would a Saudi prince issue what could be seen as a declaration of war against the Israeli army?

Shouldn’t Saudi Prince Talal be putting a price on the head of each Iranian soldier or agent actively trying to bring down the Saudi Royal family?

The answer is very simple: at the end of the day these people always will return to their hatred for Jews and the Jewish State. It is essential for all Israelis to remember this.

Of course Israel cannot follow the lead and behave in such a reckless manner, but its citizens can.

There are more than a few Israeli billionaires and I propose that someone amongst them put a contract on the head of Saudi Prince Khaled bin Talal ... say, a contract for about $900,000.

Here is the problem with that suggestion, however: I honestly do not think Prince Talal is worth more than 9 cents of anyone’s money.

So here it is: I am personally offering NINE CENTS to anyone who captures Saudi Prince Khaled bin Talal.